Course Management Final Grade Import

Status

• Work Begun: 06/19/2006
• Percent Complete: 85%

Requirements

1. The Course Management Final Grading system must accept .csv files exported from Sakai with the following columns:
   1. Site Title: Unparsed label field.
   2. Provider ID: Parsed unique course identifier of the form (term_yearterm_idcrn).
   3. Student Name: Unparsed label field.
   4. Student ID: Parsed unique student identifier (kerberos_name).
   5. Course Grade: Parsed two-letter grading code (valid Banner gradecode).
2. Accepted files must be parsed to resolve valid grading tuples (Course,Student,Grade) according to systemic grading rules.
3. Grading tuples passing validation must be saved to the internal database.
4. Instructors must be notified of invalid grading tuples and the cause.
5. An interface to allow direct upload of a grading sheet via url parameters must be developed

File Format

The transitional .csv file will be required to have the following columns, in order:

Direct Upload Interface

A new requirement is to support an interface to allow instructors to directly access a page allowing a downloaded Sakai gradesheet to be uploaded to the indicated course.

The hurdle in this case is that all pages of the final grading tool are designed to read a specific cookie when resolving course and instructor information. While not strictly necessary on the upload page, the target of the upload page and any further pages will require the existence of that cookie. Therefore, the upload page will be responsible for correctly setting the cookie. The format of the required cookie is as follows: CM_CURRENTCOURSE: 200605-53443-613536 (TERM_CODE-CRN-INSTRUCTOR_PIDM)

In order to set up the cookie correctly, Sakai will need to forward some information along the url passed to the final grading tool. Specifically, Sakai will need to indicate the course that will be used. The page itself should be able to resolve the correct instructor information from the content of the auth_user cookie. Therefore, the required url parameter is: course: 20060553443 (TERM_CODECRN)

Interface Mockups

There are two ways we can approach the Final Grading interface for SmartSite Course Grading sheet uploads. We can either integrate the interface with the existing interface for download and upload of excel files, or we can build a separate interface. Providing one interface, while perhaps allowing some confusion, should present the most powerful set of features.

• A mockup of the direct upload interface can be seen here: http://ips.ucdavis.edu/grading/mockup/fgs_direct_upload.cfm?All=A01-A05
  
• A mockup of the gradesheet download / upload page can be seen here: http://ips.ucdavis.edu/grading/mockup/fgs_gradesheet.cfm?All=A01-A05
  
• A mockup of the default import summary page can be seen here: http://ips.ucdavis.edu/grading/mockup/fgs_gradesheet_parse.cfm?All=A01-A05
  

Code Changes

The following pages will be changed:

• fgs_gradsheet_parse.cfm : Implement detection of Sakai format file and invocation of appropriate tag.
• tag_fgs_gradesheet_parse_sakai.cfm : New implementation of csv parsing for Sakai file format.